Voyage to Dorey. 497 



where we were again becalmed, and were three more days 

 creeping through them. Several native canoes now came off 

 to us from Waigiou on one side, and Batanta on the other, 

 bringing a few common shells, palm-leaf mats, cocoa-nuts, and 

 pumpkins. They were very extravagant in their demands, be- 

 ing accustomed to sell their trifles to whalers and China ships, 

 whose crews will purchase any thing at ten times its value. My 

 only purchases were a float belonging to a turtle-spear, carved 

 to resemble a bird, and a very well made palm-leaf box, for 

 which articles I gave a copper ring and a yard of calico. The 

 canoes were very narrow and furnished with an outriggei*, and 

 • in some of them there was only one man, who seemed to think 

 nothing of coming out alone eight or ten miles from shore. 

 The people were Papuans, much resembling the natives of 

 Aru. 



When we had got out of the Straits, and were fairly in the 

 gi'eat Pacific Ocean, we had a steady wind for the first time 

 since leaving Ternate, but unfortunately it was dead ahead, and 

 we had to beat against it, tacking on and off the coast of New 

 Guinea. I looked with intense interest on those rugged mount- 

 ains, reti'eating ridge behind ridge into the interior, where 

 the foot of civilized man had never trod. There was the coun- 

 try of the cassowary and the tree-kangaroo, and those dark 

 forests produced the most extraordinary and the most beau- 

 tiful of the feathered inhabitants of the earth — the varied spe- 

 cies of birds of paradise. A few days more and I hoped to be 

 in pui'suit of these, and of the scarcely less beautiful insects 

 which accompany them. We had still, however, for several 

 days only calms and light head-winds, and it was not till the 

 10th of April that a fine westerly breeze set in, followed by a 

 squally night, which kept us off the entrance of Dorey harbor. 

 The next morning we entered, and came to anchor off the 

 small island of Mansinam, on which dwelt two German mis- 

 sionaries, Messrs. Otto and Geisler. The former immediately 

 came on board to give us welcome, and invited us to go on 

 shore and breakfast Avith him. We were then introduced 

 to his companion — who was suffering dreadfully from an 

 abscess on the heel, which had confined him to the house for 

 six months — and to his wife, a young German woman, who 

 had been out only three months. Unfortunately she could 



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